"Uh, yes. Thank you." I watched Jacob climb the stairs up to the street outside. "Please don't tell your master about this," I said to the maid. "Just tell him Maree decided to leave his employment."
"What's all the fuss about down there?" came a woman's voice from the back of the service area. "Who's making all that noise?"
"Mrs. Crouch," the maid said to me.
I hurriedly thanked her again, picked up my hat, and left before the housekeeper arrived. Outside, Jacob was waiting at the top of the stairs.
"Are you all right?" I asked him quietly so as not to alarm anyone within earshot.
He stared off into the distance. "I think that's my line." When I didn't answer him, he turned to me. "Well? Are you all right?"
"Is that a genuine question?" I started walking, wanting to put distance between myself and the Culvert house. "It's difficult to tell considering the way you dropped me in there."
We rounded the corner and a policeman in uniform stepped out of the recessed doorway of a coffee house and into my path, startling me. "Everything all right, miss?" He looked over my head, saw no one, and raised his eyebrows. "Who you speaking to then, eh?"
"Is there a law against talking to myself, constable?" I didn't want to deal with him. I was still mad at Jacob although it struck me how selfish my own feelings were on the matter. He'd rescued me and I should be grateful. I was grateful.
The policeman's eyebrows rose further, almost disappearing into his tall helmet. "Er, not that I know of. Good afternoon, miss."
I walked off, Jacob at my side. "I'll take that as meaning you're perfectly well," he said, picking up our conversation.
"A little shaken," I said quietly in case anyone else was lurking in doorways. "But otherwise unscathed. Thanks to you. I owe you my life, Jacob."
His pause weighed heavily between us. I tried to look at him out of the corner of my eye but only saw his profile, staring ahead. "Don't," he finally said.
"Don't what?"
"Don't talk about it. Anyone would have done the same thing."
That may be so, but why did he sound so upset? Not angry, just... I sighed. I couldn't even pinpoint the emotions simmering off him let alone determine their reason. Nor did I think I'd get an answer out of him. His face was closed up tight.
So I started a new thread of conversation, a safer one. "Did you see where Maree went?"
He shook his head. "She was gone by the time I reached the street."